News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released. Parent comment

Re:Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug off... by mcphage on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:07PM (#25731902)
> Suggesting a policy prescription in the title of a scientific study puts the legitimacy of the study in complete question.

Does it?

> The researchers must approach the question as one which can be falsifiable, else it's not science.

Isn't that what this study was—they had a hypothesis which they wished to test: "We should do X." Then they did whatever they reported in their paper, and found that their hypothesis was supported by the evidence.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug off... by khawkins on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:22PM (#25732199)
A policy prescription requires weighing of values, which a scientist should avoid at all costs. It's quite literally the point of science, to understand how the world works without injecting your personal biases about how the world should work.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug off... by mcphage on Monday January 11, 2021 @03:50PM (#25736616)
The point of science is, ideas are tested by experiment. If you don't start your experiment with a hypothesis about the way the world works, then you're just p-hacking.
[ Parent | on HN ]